Just In: US Open star receives threats to kill his family as he shares harrowing messages
Matteo Berrettini opened up about the horrific messages received threatening his family and called for more protection for those on the tennis courts. The Italian recently exited the US Open at the hands of Mariano Navone in the second round, losing in four sets.
Before his early tournament exit, Berrettini revealed the hate he had received online while discussing the US Open’s sponsorship by a betting company. The 30-year-old said: “It’s a complicated topic, because players, and I too, have said in the past that we receive messages, and I myself have experienced moments where I really didn’t feel comfortable playing with people who disrupted the match and did things that, in my opinion, had nothing to do with tennis, especially around the court.
I’ve seen it especially in Challenger matches, even in some videos where it was really tough. I know it’s complicated, it’s not easy to say: you can come in or you can’t come in, because you don’t know how they’ll behave, but something definitely has to be done.
“I just think we need to protect the players and do everything we can to create a safe environment for everyone, because, if I’m not mistaken, an Italian tennis player received messages at Indian Wells, and here’s my brother: at Roland Garros, he received messages on his phone threatening my family and things like that.
“So I think we need to create a stronger structure, I don’t know, a stronger committee to protect the players. Then, regarding sponsors, I honestly don’t know what’s right or wrong. I just think that, if it’s done the right way, I don’t see anything so negative about it.”
When pushed further on the subject of online abuse, Berrettini explained: “Yes. I won a match and they wrote things like, ‘Matteo is so bad that if you don’t tell him to lose,’ or something like that, ‘We’ll kill your family,’ or ‘We’ll do this.’
“They threatened us. Obviously, he reported everything to the ATP and we reported everything too. They have the phone numbers and everything.
“But we’re thirty years old, we’re adults, but when I think about girls and younger people, receiving these kinds of messages can be scary. We’re tennis players, so it’s important to protect ourselves.”
